gsj: volume 8, issue 4, april 2020, online: issn 2320-9186 · elections bc (2014) analyzed that...

GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 4, April 2020, Online: ISSN 2320-9186

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Motivation: Adoption of an online voting system for the upcoming Nigeria General Election 2023

First Author: Ademola Abdulganiyu Adesokan First name: Ademola

Middle name: Abdulganiyu Last name: Adesokan

Second Author: Jamilu Yusuf

First name: Jamilu Last name: Yusuf

Abstract Nigeria general elections apparently had been experiencing a high level of irregularities, inconclusiveness and less involvement in its electoral processes right from 1999-2019 due to lack of implementing an online voting system (OVS).There is no contradiction that technology has drastically reduced incidences of electoral malpractices such as: ballot stuffing, result sheet mutilation, manipulations, over voting, alteration of result sheets and hijacking of ballot boxes in the history of Nigeria elections. Though the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has employed a number of innovative approaches to improve the management and conduct of elections in the country. The last few years have brought a renewed focus on to the technology used in the voting process. The current voting system in Nigeria has many security holes such as failure of card reader among others.This paper provides an overview on the past technologies being adopted for voting in Nigeria since 1999-2019 and proposed an adoption of an OVSin Nigeria for the 2023 general election and ascertain success to review of other countries that have adopted OVS; the adoption success is based on implementation of OVS adopted at the international level. Keywords - INEC, OVS, Nigeria, 2023 General election.

GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 4, April 2020 ISSN 2320-9186 1438

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1.0 Introduction

One of the most dramatic changes to our way of life over the past fifty years has been the

widespread proliferation and use of digital technology. Today many people buy their groceries,

pursue relationships through dating sites, conduct their banking, watch movies or shows, work

remotely, and communicate using forums or applications that rely on the internet.

Tasks such as voter strike-off at the polls, changes to poll books, the administration of oaths, the

casting of ballots and ballot tabulation are done manually. If the internet can be used to promote

transparency and accountability in other government institutions, can the same be true for

Nigeria’s 2023 general elections?

Democracy in every society is very important not only because through it a change of leadership

is effected but also because voting is the main form of political participation for most people.

For democracy to be sound, it should be anchored on election free from fraud. Democracy thus,

encourages individual freedom according to the rule of law, so that people may behave and

express themselves as they decided. This not only gives people a chance to choose their leaders,

but also to freely express their views on issues.

Voting is a means of selecting or choosing leaders, it does not apply only to higher institutions of

learning, associations, and social organization but also in local government, states and federal

government of Nigeria.

Voting in Nigeria has long been a challenging democratic process. It is natural for man to always

seek for easier ways to carry out processes. As far back as from 1999, after the military regime;

the elections had been conducted manually until 2015 (Omolaye, Daniel &Orifa, as cited in

Enoch and Saturday, 2017) and it has resulted to non-credible elections; even though it has

always been termed free and fair election (Ahmad, Abdullah & Arshad, 2015). There had been



high level of rigging, large differences between eligible voters and accredited voters. It has

resulted to advocacy for the use of e-voting system by policy makers in the country; in order to

check transparency, integrity of the electoral process and the likes (Ahmad et al., 2015). OVS

can be termed as internet voting system (i-voting) and they are all part of e-voting since it

inculcate the use of software and hardware.

According to Ahmad et al. (2015), it is necessary to point out the loopholes in our traditional

voting system which has been the reason for the exploitation of our electoral processes by

partisans and mischief politicians; which means that it lacks transparency, accountability, free

and fair play.

Europe and America, have been on the top in the use of i-voting in electoral process (Ahmad et

al., 2015).

Nigeria has indeed seen the need for alternative method to carry out the electoral processes; that

is why introducing Information Technology was raised (Onu&Chiamogu as cited in Ahmad et

al., 2015). E-voting has been projected as a better way to achieve good electoral process and to

avoid thuggery, violence, etc. Thus, it has some potential advantages over the traditional method

that has been in practice. It has been proven to be more safe, better security and robust; also

reduces substantial errors (Ahmad et al., 2015). Statistics Canada (2008) opines that Information

and Communication Technology (ICT) is a field of work and study that includes technologies

such as the desktop and laptop computers, software, peripherals, and connections to internet

primarily for information processing and communications functions. The usage of OVS in

election can eliminate the incidents of multiple registrations, which had been one of the main

political tools for rigging elections by unscrupulous and savage elements (Ejikeme, 2015).



E-voting is more convenient and thereby encourages citizens to vote wisely which is a problem

with the traditional method (Kozakova as cited in Ahmad et al., 2015). Its efficiency and

effectiveness cannot be over-emphasized; which has helped to organize electoral processes with

cost effectiveness. Some level of accuracy, and verification process is can be achieved with this

method (Abu-Shanab, Knight &Refai, 2010).

E-voting is a voting process where electronic technologies are used. For a good measure of

legitimacy of a state and its relationship with its citizenry. That is guided by the rule of law, e-

voting is an accepted method (Brown as cited in Ahmad et al., 2015).

The idea of sourcing for an alternative method is to achieve a representative of the people’s

voice; and so a large number of electorates is needed which will depict an effective voting

system (Olaniyi, Adewumi, Oluwatosin, Bashorun&Arulogun, 2011).

E-voting and I-voting systems has been in use in developed countries such as Switzerland,

Canada, Australia, Estonia etc. and other developing countries like India, Brazil (Goldsmith

&Ruthrauff as cited in Enoch and Saturday, 2017). However, the choice of a voting a system is

very crucial and sensitive since it poses the risk of losing trust and confidence on the system of

the citizenry (Hall, 2012).

In Nigeria, the transition from traditional method of the electoral process to partial e-voting

obviously facing a lot of challenges. It is important to note that the adoption of the legal terms

and conditions to use the e-voting system in Nigeria is a challenge (Ajayi as cited in Ahmad et

al., 2015); Ahmad et al. (2015) asserts that ICT seem to be the major pivot to cause a great

turning point in the Nigeria Vision 2020. This means that Nigeria is definitely on the road to a

better governance because when there is a fairly transparent electoral system adopted like an



OVS in the upcoming Nigeria 2019 general elections, probability of achieving the people’s

choice will be optimized.

In the bid to transit from the traditional method of voting to e-voting, Nigeria has experimented

partial use of e-voting system in 2015 general elections; it is termed partial e-voting system

because the actual ballot casting was done manually (Okediran& Ganiyu, 2015).

The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 contains introduction; research motivation, problem

statement, aim and objectives, justification of the study, section 2 contains literature review;

review of e-voting and OVS in other countries, review of other related works, section 3 contains

analysis of technologies used in Nigeria’s general elections from 1999-2015 and its discussions,

section 4 contains conclusion, section 5 contains recommendation and Section 6 is the reference.

1.1 Research Motivation

The internet is also transforming governments and the way we interact with them, creating

additional participation channels and in some cases enabling the culture of government to

become more open, transparent and accountable. While technology has influenced government

in other areas, efforts to modernize or digitize electoral institutions at the federal level have been

slow. Though, as a sign of progress on transition to e-voting system, the senate, on Thursday,

30th March, 2017 approved the use of e-voting in subsequent electoral processes (Daily Post

Nigeria website, 2017).

In previous manual/partial e-voting elections in Nigeria, a nationwide ballot could consume

thousand tonnes of paper, phials of indelible ink and require more than thousands strongboxes

among others to store them under heavy security until the votes were counted. In the past, it took

up to two-three days to count the votes, with hired personnel spending day and night in secured

areas manually counting each ballot from ward level to INEC headquarters. Sometimes



demanding for recounting resulting for the low margin of difference of votes between the top

two candidates coupled with large number of invalid and doubtful votes which might end up as

inconclusive or rerun.

1.2 Problem statement

Processes associated with Nigeria voting system in the past have always been a manual/partial e-

voting process which entails a lot of problems. Thus, without ambiguity, this work was initiated

to propose an OVS for the Nigeria 2023 general election and it also analyze the weaknesses and

limitations of the manual/partial e-voting system with the intention to provide solutions to the

below problems. The problems of the paper ballot system of voting include among others the

following;

• Expensive and time consuming

• Too much paper work, errors during data entry

• Short time provided to allow the voter register

• A number of voters end up being locked out from voting

• High rate of rigging during election process, multiple voters, inefficient and inaccurate

counting of votes by officers concerned, illegible voters casting their vote, over voting

and underage voting.

1.3 Aim andobjectives of the study

In view of the rapid development of computer technology in virtually all fields of operation and

its use in relation to information management, the aim of this paper is to propose the adoption of

OVS to enable INEC to achieve the following objectives;

• To conduct free and fair election,

• To safeguard data and information in the system.



• To reduce workload in the process of conducting election.

• To keep accurate record of votes, and reduce delay in announcing election result.

• And to eliminate disenfranchising of electorates among others.

1.4 Justification of the study

The use of OVS will help to solve the problems in the existing system, and some of the

justification for the proposed OVS includes;

• To check double votingand disallow double registration.

• To maintain transparency and allowremote access.

• And early display of results among others.

2.0 Literature review

This section presents review of e-voting and OVS in other countries and basically

reviewsconceptual framework ofotherrelated works in the area of e-voting and OVS.

2.1 Review of e-voting and OVS in other countries

This subsection of the paper review adoption success of fully implementation of e-voting and

OVS in other countries. Though, systems of voting vary widely from country to country, and

sometimes from locality to locality. Below are list of some countries that have adopted e-voting

and OVS;

In Estonia, the most widespread use of e-voting has been in existence. According to Barratet

al.(2012b) accounted that Estonia has allowed its voters to cast a ballot over the internet in local

elections since 2005 and national elections since 2007 as part of the government's e-government

strategy. Brightwell (2011) commented that the Australian state of New South Wales, home to

Sydney and with population as large as Quebec, recently introduced i-voting.



According to Républiqueet Canton de Genève (2009) revealed that Switzerland is a federal state

in which 26 separate cantons each administer their own elections. Four cantons have adopted

Internet voting, a number that is constrained by Swiss laws that limit the number of voters who

can use e-voting in a general election.

Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (2011) analyzed that in

Norway 2011 municipal elections, over 27,500 voters in 10 municipalities cast their vote online

in a pilot project that was unique because the government focused on making the e-voting system

highly transparent.

OSCE (2012c) accounted for the recently used internet based voting in France to elect 11 deputy

ministers to represent citizens living abroad. As a result, this became one of the largest e-voting

uses to date, with over 126,000 votes being cast online.

According to Alvarez et al. (2011) indicated that electronic machines were introduced to replace

older machines using levers in some South American countries, such as Brazil and Venezuela,

the motivation behind moving to voting machines was primarily due to a lack of trust in local

elections officials, and a genuine perception that voting equipment would provide more reliable

results that were relatively immune to manipulation by voting authorities.

Kumar (2011) reported that the introduction of voting machines in India replaced some 2.5

million ballot boxes that needed to be secured. Voters are still required to physically attend a

polling station and properly identify themselves to electoral authorities before being permitted to

use a voting machine. Most of these machines are stand-alone kiosks, meaning that they are not

connected to the Internet.

2.2 Review of other related works



Kohno et al. (2004) indicated that voting systems must be transparent and comprehensible

enough that voters and candidates can readily accept the results. Electronic Voting Mechanisms

(EVMs) ensured that the total number of votes cast was tallied within two to three hours as

against thirty to forty hours when the conventional means were used.

Cetinkaya et al. (2007) reported the verification and validation in e-voting and gave the proper

definitions for verifiability and validity. It describes about verification and validation activities

and explains the relationship between the core requirements to any e-voting system

Cranor (2011) gave an extensive list on references relating to e-voting (including i-voting).

Brazil and India are examples of countries that use e-voting for both general and state elections.

Statistics show that the use of EVMs, an e-voting system in India has eliminated the occurrence

of invalid votes during elections and prior to their use, the number of invalid votes that were

recorded in India was always more than the winning margin between the candidates (Mira, 2004;

Gadekaret al., 2011).

St. Albans, UK, in May 2007, implemented a fully electronic election with no paper-based

voting allowed. People were to use a number of channels to vote, the Internet, kiosks, Interactive

Voice Recognition (IVR) via telephones or mobile phones, and also by post. Within six minutes,

the system had counted all the ballots – recording the fastest ever vote count. Furthermore, no

invalid vote was recorded, and all attempts to subvert the system by means of worms, viruses and

Denial-of-Service proved futile (Kelly as cited inInuwa&Oye, 2015). The newer and more

improved trends in voting are showing that a greater number of developed nations are beginning

to choose e-voting systems over the paper based voting systems due to their convenience and the

ease which they offer voters and election officials (Awad& Ernst, 2011; Gefen et al., 2005).



Elections BC (2014) analyzed that administratively, online voting can reduce ballot errors and

spoiled ballots, which can occur by selecting too many or too few candidates, unclear markings,

or markings that identify the voter by letting the voter know if he/she has over-voted or under-

voted. The proportion of rejected paper ballots is typically about 0.05% of all votes cast.

From the above literature reviews, it could be understood that the published information on e-

voting and OVS is gaining more importance very recently among the researchers and this

indicates the high priority of researchers towards this topic.

3.0 Analysis on technologies used in Nigeria’s general elections from 1999 to 2015

Table 1 below shows the technologies used in the Nigeria general elections from 1999 to 2015

which ranges from the use of typewriters to Direct Data Capture Machine (DDCM), Electronic

Voters’ Register (EVR) and Smart Card Reader (SCR).

Table 1: List of technologies deployed by INEC for voting from 1999-2015.

Source: INEC

3.1 DISCUSSIONS



By observation from table 1 above, Nigeria’s general elections get more refined with its

technologies but still not up to international standard since vote are still casted on ballot papers.

For the registration of voters, it started in 1999 with the capture of only basic details of voters. In

2003, it added finger prints which were done on paper forms. It went fully electronic in 2006

with the introduction of biometrics-(pictures and fingerprints) which gave birth to the popular

Electronic Voters Register (EVR). In 2011, the introduction of AFIS to detect and minimize

cases of multiple registrations. In 2015, an improved AFIS was further used to clean the register.

Business rule was also applied in 2015 which allowed for the capture of minimum of two fingers

as the criteria for inclusion of any voter in the electronic register. It is believed that with the use

of OVS, INEC would be able to eradicate or reduce to the barest minimum cases of irregularities

and inconclusiveness in the Nigeria 2023 general elections.

Figure 1: Number of voters on INEC register from 1999 to 2015 general elections

The total number of voters on INEC register for general elections from 1999 to 2015 is shown

in figure 1 above. It can be deduced from the chat that INEC through the regular use of its

technologies by its staff is now more technologically efficient. This is evident in the number of



days voters registration was conducted in 2006 compared to 2011. It took INEC 4 months to

register 61,567,036 voters in 2006 while it registered 73,528,040 within 21 days in 2011. The

number of voters registered in 2011 differs with that of 2007 by 19.42% which represents over

12 million voters. This is due to the INEC improvement on the quality of machines and

personnel used for the 2011 voters’ registration.

Figure 2: Percentage difference in registration figures from 1999 to 2015

In figure 2 above, a shortfall of 6,106,035 voters is observed on the register between year 2011

and 2015 which represents 8.30% of the total voters in the EVR despite the further addition of

2015 continuous voters’ registration (CVR) exercise figures. The reason is the re-introduction of

an improved AFIS in 2015 which led to the deletion of over five million double registrations

from the EVR. The introduction of business rule which only allows voters who has at least two

fingerprints captured in the register further reduced the number of voters on the register

drastically. With the rate of technological advancement of INEC, it is believed that if OVS can



be used in the future elections, issue of irregularities will be completely eradicated or reduced to

the barest minimum.

4.0 Conclusion

The use of the partial e-voting in Nigerian electoral system has really modernized the system and

improved election management in the country (Ayeni & Esan, 2018). Results revealed that the

introduction of some e-voting mechanism such as Electronic Voters Register (EVR), Automatic

Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) and Smart Card Reader (SCR) have reduced the

incidence of multiple registration and multiple voting but not negligible.

Nigeria is in the process of incorporating an alternative method of voting in the electoral process.

Some frameworks have been proposed and also a partial e-voting system was used during the

2015 general elections. This research work proposed the use of OVS that can help to ease and

increase participation in the electoral process in the Nigeria 2023 general elections thus reduce

irregularities. OVS are known with the following features; adequate security for voters, fast vote

counting and release of result, convenient participation and check on the problem of

disenfranchisement, long term cost effectiveness, easy to modify and user-friendly.

If the partial use of e-voting can be useful then let imagine using full e-voting system such as

OVS? Therefore, OVS if implemented in election management in Nigeria 2023 general elections

will curbed excessive electoral fraud and irregularities to the barest minimum, foster credible

elections and confidence can be vested on INEC concerning the upcoming Nigeria 2023 general

elections transparency.

5.0 Recommendations

Based on various studies and implementations of OVS at international level, the paper

recommend the followings:



• Nigeria government should try to implement the use of OVS in the upcoming general

elections to overcome the challenge of delay in the final collation of results and to save

costs and thereby increase transparency.

• Voters register update and voters’ revalidation exercise should be done before any

general election directly from the NIMC system. This will enable INEC to detect and

remove illegible voters from the register.

• Enough time should be allocated to ICT-based activities to reduce the stress of technical

support staff.

• Additionally, experts should be recruited from Nigeria and abroad to train INEC officials

(staffs) as technology evolves. This will also reduce the cost of outsourcing the e-voting

system tasks to consultants. It will also minimize security risk.

• Lastly, voters’ education and ICT knowledge should be prioritized as most Nigeria

electorates are semi or fully illiterates.

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